


Dictionary Doldrums

by Ratt9



Category: Death Note, Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Related, Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Dark, Drama, Drama & Romance, Gen, Horror, Insanity, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Graphic Smut, Obsession, One Shot, Other, Psychological Drama, Relationship(s), Romance, Sexual Content, Shorts, Suspense, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 17:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3863278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ratt9/pseuds/Ratt9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>L was the kind of person who's only beautiful from a distance, but now he and Light were breathing the same air. </p>
<p>(As well as being occasionally inside of each other.)</p>
<p>Arguably LxLight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dictionary Doldrums

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stormygio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormygio/gifts).



> This is an older one but I'm just getting around to posting it now.

* * *

**doldrums**

_[n. period of depression]_

For Light's whole life he had felt like a character in a story whose author had died—he knew he was meant for so much more than the life he's been given, but when a story has no plot it's over before it ever had the chance to begin. But then L came into his life, and it was only then that he felt like he was actually part of the plot that was beginning again, as though the story had been picked up and continued by some stranger going through another stranger's books. For the first time Light found himself no longer alone on the once-empty page.

* * *

**sine qua non**

_[n. absolutely needed]_

It's funny, in a tragic way, how much Light has come to need L in such a short time period. L is a _(special special pretty)_ deadpan witness to Kira's triumph, the only one able to understand the extent of his brilliance, his influence; L, the dancer and not the dreamer, the doubter and not the builder—L, the shadow of a god who refuses to worship that which is always directly in front of him _(one step ahead of him)_ : L, who makes Light feel like screaming and winning and dancing and falling and Light doesn't know how he ever, ever lived without him.

* * *

**dais**

_[n. a low stage]_

Light is interrogated in rooms made of percentages and confusion and whirls of noise that lack true sound, and L is the only one who can recognize it for what it is—just one big performance on a perfectly constructed stage. Light thinks he might love L for that, so for a split second he unzips his human costume and flashes the camera he knows L is watching a grin appropriate for the wolf he really is.

* * *

**ignominy**

_[n. public disgrace]_

When Light gives himself up, it is embarrassing and tiresome and his father's disappointment is all but tangible, but this is not the end, only a means to it, and he is confident that when he casts his mind away it will eventually come back to him because he's brilliant enough to defend his throne from anyone who tries to take it away. Days become a dream as they go by and remain entirely the same until Light can't even tell if it is night or day or day or night or noon or the end of the world, and sometimes he almost wishes he were stupid, because stupid is so _easy_ , because stupid people don't have thoughts that swarm and swarm and never let them rest and he is just so fucking _tired_.

* * *

**glib**

_[adj. insincere/shallow words]_

Everything Light says is a lie until suddenly it isn't, and L is aggravated and frustrated and confused because surely this can't possibly be the same boy he's been talking to for the past few weeks, not the Light Yagami with the clearly appalling mind and the wild eyes and the salty words and the plastic emotions he takes off every night like a mask. This new Light is a shell of the old, and his crown of thorns has been replaced by half-murmured promises of justice and truth that make L feel violent with impossibility.

* * *

**inchoate**

_[adj. just begun]_

For so long L has been nothing more than a voice in a speaker speaking to him as wastes away in his deep prison, but as the detective secures the metal chain to both of their wrists Light is struck by just how fully he is there. There is an element of horror and grotesqueness and the coarse reality is that L knows everything essential and nonessential about him—every staggered instant, every self-consuming moment. L is the kind of person who is only beautiful from a distance, but now they are breathing in the same air.

* * *

**scacchic**

_[adj. relating to chess]_

On the days when L's exasperatingly childish bouts of 'depression' are more prominent, he and Light sit in the room with their pearls and chess pieces and play each other in the pursuit of secrets. Of course, it never fails to end in a stalemate because Light can read L's next moves as though they are being screamed in his face while L says likewise, ' _Light-kun thinks far too loudly.'_

* * *

**picayune**

[ _adj. of little importance_ ]

For all their desperate trying and determination, the rest of the investigation team are, ultimately, of little importance—nothing but drastically unequal parts wanting to mean something they will never understand. They are blind to the world, as much as they think they're part of it, going through their petty lives seeing so much while understanding nothing, and when L and Light talk on just the other side of the room, they may as well be an entire galaxy removed.

* * *

**exalt**

_[v. idolize or worship]_

Light had never worshipped anyone but himself, but L was a thousand ways different from the pixelated ordinary people living in the world Light was kind of part of but not really. They lied together and at each other and with each other and it felt so good and refreshing to be able to wallow in dishonesty with someone who wasn't blind to the creativity of his deceptions.

* * *

**diminuendo**

_[n. decrease in loudness]_

Light and L don't need to speak to understand one another, so instead of saying ' _I enjoy our conversations_ ', Light says with his eyes ' _I love being silent with you_ ', because it's good to mix truth in with lies sometimes lest the liar become too predictable.

* * *

**proselyte**

_[n. convert from one religion to another]_

L was an atheist, but Light was a god and he was more tangible than anything else L had ever known, wrist binding wrist, unable to escape and not wanting to. Light would convert him if it was the last thing he ever did _(it might be)_ , because L was his best anti-friend and the only person who had ever made Light feel. Light decided he hated L so much that he never wanted to let him go.

* * *

**juxtaposition**

_[n. two things that contrast]_

What a lot of people don't realize is that love and hate are not opposing conditions, and the real, _true_ opposite of both of them is indifference. Light doesn't care whether L feels love or hate towards him as long as he makes L _feel_ , because where there is feeling there is passion, and that is all Light can ever ask for.

* * *

**colloquial**

_[adj. informal conversation]_

' _You're the only one who hears me,_ ' Light whispers, late one night, laying in the pervasive darkness that he finds frighteningly beautiful, ' _you're the only one who always listens_ — _you're almost as pretty as I am.'_

' _That's because Light-kun is repulsive_ ,' L replies, simply, because they both know that it's true, and the truth is beautiful.

Light can't help the smile that spreads magnificently across his face.

* * *

**verisimilitude**

_[n. appearance of being true or real]_

Light sees L's corpse in his dreams and all he can think is that it is too beautiful to possibly exist in reality, so he wakes up. But when he glances at L, pale face illuminated by the light of his laptop as his eyes sift animalistically through pages and pages of data, Light isn't sure if he's awake or still dreaming.

* * *

**mumpsimus**

_[n. one not letting a belief go even after proven wrong]_

L is wrong, L is so so so wrong about him and he will never admit it ever, but that's okay, because even though he will never let this be over, even though he and Light are likely to be linked and strung together until the end of eternity because it's impossible to prove that someone is someone they are not and never have been, even though it will probably all mean nothing in the end, nothing at all, in the bright darkness of nights cold and bittersweet, the hundred faces of daytime all fall away until there is nothing there but raw brilliance and ferocity and _obsession_ , _obsession_ because that's all they have left, and they kiss and spit and bite until they make each other bleed pretty pretty bloodred blood and if this is what it means to be guilty, then yes, guilty is _good_ , guilty is _so_ much better than good.

* * *

**perfervid**

_[adj. intense and impassioned]_

For the first and only time, L and Light make love in the dark, just once ignoring the fact that love is not and never will be something real in their sinful lives. Light closes the distance between them, all personal space lost in the dance, and L's rhythm becomes him, both utterly mortal as they tremble with passion, coherent thoughts slowing as they quicken until finally the entire world around them consists of just this room and each other, and Light can't even remember a life without L and his merciless fascination, his perfervid surveillance. When they're finished they wrap their bodies around each other the same way the night wraps them in its inky awkward blackness as they eat up the nearness before the bitter grey sunlight of morning dissembles the darkness and forces them apart.

* * *

**esoteric**

_[adj. understood by few]_

Light's memory returns like subtle fire coursing through his veins of murderous blood, and in the middle of his scream L can see death flickering in his eyes like the sun, the kind of thing that gives teeth to nightmares and makes gods hesitate. ' _Welcome back, Kira_ ,' L whispers, and Light shoots him a dead smile and leans in for a kiss, sarcastic and threatening, because there's no need for denial when they're the only ones in the world who would understand the change.

* * *

**mors vincit omnia**

_[latin. 'death conquers all']_

Light feels liberated and tragic and rabid and horrified and above all utterly _devastated_ , devastated because how fucking _dare_ L just fucking _die_ like that, how dare he not live up to everything Light thought he was. This is not how this is supposed to end, this is not how this is supposed to end at all, because L is just as perfect as Light is and they are supposed to keep dancing a pas de deux until the end of eternity, a constant turning of the tables, never stopping, never ever ever, constantly shoving each other away and never letting each other go, never able to trick the other into death.

But of course L doesn't get up because he really is dead, and death conquers all in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure how I feel about this one.


End file.
